Earlier this week we talked about some of the other man-made laws of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. Today we are going to look a little deeper into what this was like.
Read Mark 7:1-4 and journal your thoughts
Notice in Mark 3, how they refer to the “Tradition of the Elders”, what is that? The Tradition of the Elders is a part of the Oral Law, which is a sort of interpretation of how to live the Law. What had happened is that the Tradition of the Elders became a sort of safe guard to sin, so that it became wrong to do things that weren’t sinful, because they could lead to sin. For example, lust is sinful, use of the internet could lead to lust, therefore you shouldn’t use the internet.
The problem with these Traditions was not only did it make the Law almost impossible to uphold but the religious leaders were able to use it to create loopholes from doing other parts of God’s Law. If you read Mark 7:5-13, you see that Jesus calls them out on just that. Here Jesus talks about how “Corbin” keeps them from honoring their mother and father. So what’s that about?
In their culture, when someone got older they didn’t have a retirement package, or anything like that, instead they worked to provide until they couldn’t anymore. When this happened they became dependent on their children to provide for them. The other part of this piece of Scripture is in their traditions; one could designate their money as “Corbin” which meant it was devoted to God, or that it wouldn’t go towards secular or personal uses. Instead it was consecrated to the service of God in the temple. This of course raises the question; who is in charge of the temple money? They are.
As you think about this today, ask yourself if there are any traditions that we do today that keeps us from the things God wants us to do?
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